Anyone play this game? It looks pretty neat and the reviews are good enough that I think I'll give it a try.

So it's basically Heroes of Might and Magic? Looks pretty sweet. I'm off to find more l33t infoz.

looks like wow or nwn meets battletech, which could be kind of cool

_________________

Always liked Kings Bounty/HoMM. Played the shit out of Kings Bounty on the C64. This isn't made by the same guys tho but reviews say it is pretty true to the original.

Looks like an expansion is due soon also.

The game looks pretty sweet. I'm going to see if there is a demo on the net

King's Bounty on C64 rocked.

I played this a while back. It's interesting to manage your troops a little... but I was ticked off by the lack of respawns and ability to level up off them. Basically if you do a few wrong moves, you may well end up fighting very tough stuff or lots of very easy stuff. And by that token you need to be careful with your troops in general. Towns and cities sell these troops in LIMITED quantities, and if you complete certain quests they will become "Horde" troops, which makes them unlimited. Unfortunately, most of those horde troops are the lamest available(compared to say... Ancient polar bears!).

You can't really pick your army and stick with it, leveling it up as you go(at least from what I found), and that's a bit of a turnoff for me. You're encouraged to constantly switch troops around, and IMO part of the problem with that is you often run out of good troops to recruit. That's not to say the game is overly difficult, it's just a little annoying(to me anyway).

I may sound a little harsh there, and it's not a bad game really. I think it may be a matter of personal taste. It does have very good aspects - the battle system is pretty cool, leveling up your hero speccing them out etc is nice, along with some interesting features such as having a wife and kids.

I would throw in don't expect any serious explorable 3d-esque environment. You're more or less plopped onto a "world map"-style land mass and told "go". That's not to say the environment is bad though, just don't expect Oblivion or even Mount and Blade(limited environ there too) here =). The graphical detail on the world map isn't bad at all, though.

I should note that I didn't play the original KB, so perhaps my nostalgia didn't quite kick in as it did for some. I probably should try it just to see.

I'd also throw in that the animation and sound in this game are high points. The graphics on the units are also quite nice. Aethestically it is a nice game, though personally I think the gameplay leaves a little something to be desired.

Bump!

I had missed this (thanks for bumping Neesha, though...you could have locked the other thread?) and posted my opinion in the other thread. I came back to post the HOMM thing, as I had just talked with my brother who pointed out it was a remake, which I wasn't aware of. Not sure if I played this one, though I played others in the series which were awesome.

It's on Steam now, and on sale. Def. worthwhile. I didn't see any demos out there unfortunately =\

_________________

Ok so it's HoMM but without multiplayer? What's the point?

I'm not sure if it's a 'direct' copy or not, but it certainly has upgrades. HOMM had many editions, I think KB was the 6th, but I'm not sure. I do know my brother had said it didn't sell that great initially because it was released as 'King's Bounty' rather than HOMM VI or whatever.

Anyway it's an upgrade of the classic that's for sure. How much is changed...I can't say as I don't remember the original.

I can say that I'd pay the same amount of money to play an updated copy of Xeen if it was this good. Or Hero's Quest: Quest for Glory.

I'm having a lot of fun with it, it's well worth the money to me. YMMV. I'm not sure how much it says about the state of computer games that a 20+ year old game is both this much fucking fun, and winning GOTY awards.

_________________

I didn't see a reason to lock the other thread. I really don't care if there are 20 threads on the same topic, personally.

Ah just better to lock them that way it's all on one thread. Did you end up getting the game and if so, what do you think?

It's really too bad there's not a demo of it, I think the type of game it is might not be fun to some people and a short demo would show them just how the mechanics work. Just allowing the first area quests would be fine. Bleh.

_________________

HoMM knockoff? I'm down.

_________________

I got it and like every other game I get, I played it for 30 mins and never touched it again. Seemed cool, though.

Isn't HOMM a knockoff of the original? I don't remember HOMM as being nearly as old as the original game that I played a long time ago.

They were both made by the same people. HoMM is the spiritual successor.

oh hey is this the miggent game

_________________

It makes me feel old when someone says "HOMM knockoff!" when referring to something called "Kings Bounty" and it makes me twitch.

I'm still playing this, and enjoying the hell out of it. One of the things I like the most is, if you've visited a location before (a location that gives you something for clicking on it, like a shrine or whatever) it says VISITED in grey after the name. So you don't have to dick around with reclicking a gazillion things because you forget if you did it or not.

I also enjoy how decisions actually impact what goes on. Specifically you're asked at some point to kill someone who's a murderer. But is he really? If you do other quests and question people along the way...you'll get a good answer. It's not proof positive, but EVERYONE thinks he is. And then more importantly, you'll discover he has no intention of letting the rightful heir assume the position, because he thinks the child is a bastard. Which doesn't matter if he thinks that, as the child's father never questioned it...and if he knew or guessed, he still wanted his son to be his heir (and the reason he believes the child a bastard would be obvious to the guy who claimed him as son. And yeah...the kid probably IS a bastard).

But having all that information you can decide to do whatever you want. And it changes other quests you haven't done yet, based on what you decide.

---

Also I read that mage was supposed to be 'easiest' to play, I haven't found that to be the case. I'm finding paladin MUCH easier. YMMV. Warrior is supposed to be the most difficult, I haven't tried it yet tho.

_________________

Agreed: this game is excellent. I'm totally engrossed.

King's Legend has a three fundamental qualities that stand out (that most HoMM-esque games lack): unit diversity, balance, and an engrossing, long-term "adventure" perspective.

Most combat units have special abilities (on top of the usual stat and "quality" differences), which really diversifies their roles in combat. These abilities make combat a lot more rewarding, because if you can take the time to play thoughtfully and build a tactical army, the benefit is substantial.

The game in general seems better balanced than most HoMM-esque games, thanks primarily to a simple mechanic called "leadership" that dictates the capacity of your army. (Instead of being able to buy all the units you can find, your army size is limited by how "strong" your character is.) If you're the kind of person who drives himself crazy trying to "flawless" every combat in order to retain maximum army strength (which I pulled my hair out doing in HoMM), you'll appreciate this quality of King's Bounty: if you end up losing a couple units, you can just go restock.

One gripe that I always had about HoMM is that just when your hero starts fleshing into what you'd envisioned, the game is over and you had to start fresh (OK: so I wasn't a big fan of campaign mode). In King's Bounty, you have no such problem: you play the same hero for the full 50 hours of the game. On top of tons of quests and a beautifully made adventure map, these characteristics make the adventure component of the game a fun one.

So yeah: really enjoying the game. I'm playing a mage.

Here's my army composition (at the moment).

_________________

I thought resources were pretty limited in this, I.E. you actually couldn't just keep going back and buying units as often as you please. Is that not the case?

Very limited IMO. If I recall correctly, sometimes you'll go to refill your troops two times and you'll never see that type of unit again for the rest of the game. The only exception I found was Horde units when you met certain requirements, which is only a small fraction of the game's unit diversity.

That was one of the factors that sorta killed it for me. I like being able to mix and match and try out different combos of units to see how they perform, and that kind of limits it if you ever lose a few units.

Make sure to backup your saves. I lost my saved characters, and am having to start again from scratch. GRUMP.

And yes, troops are limited, but it prevents people from simply 'refilling' the best combos. I like the limitations, even though they're annoying. You'll also fuck yourself over if you visit some castles too early, or so I've found as I'm doing the replay.

_________________

Yeah, it's true that unit supplies can be limited for some units (for some units, though, supplies are unlimited or near unlimited). Like Tarot said, you need to be flexible and allow your army composition to migrate. Being forced to try new units every once in a while adds a bit of fun, anyway, I think.

Tarot: I assume you'd prefer to build your own character again. But in case you find it frustrating, I just finished up and have a good array of saves from my mage. Let me know if you're interested.

_________________

I still find it a disappointing decision in game design. There are plenty of other ways to prevent "pick the best combo and stick with it forever" strats. Increase the gold cost. Require soft or hard adaptation to different enemies: i.e., knights are bad against mob X. Make a steeper progression curve where older troops won't be as effective against higher level and stronger enemies.

All of the above would really "push" you towards trying out new units, but without the negative side effect of being forced into it... which allows for more freeform play.

Thanks! I considered doing that (picking saves from online somewhere) or simply hacking the character, assuming there's some kind of hex editor out there...but I don't mind replaying with what I know now. It allowed me to do some things faster/earlier on which were beneficial.

Appreciate it though!

_________________

I'm enjoying this game so far, level 8 mage. Good reccomendation! Only annoying thing is I can't get any in game music to play, but at least I can play itunes in the backround.

Fun fun game. As far as the complaints about limited units... meh. Unlimited units would make the game waaaay to easy. Would require no strategy at all.

Unlimited units:
Sacrifice and turn back time (the rage ability)

Sac low level unit, res high level unit, turn back time on low level unit so they are back to full. Either start fight with fewer than full leadership of the troop you want to create more of, or just do it near end of battle when them going crazy won't matter.

Transfer the extra units to one of your 2 reserve slots, rinse and repeat. Works on everything that can be affected by sacrifice, which is most units in the game. No black dragons, undead, cyclops or plants. Everything else seems to be fine.

The sequel is out. I enjoyed it more than the first. Top notch.

_________________

Just a warning about the sequel, it doesn't work with Windows 7, even in compatibility mode. It's a shame too, I was greatly enjoying it until I upgraded my computer. The developer website said there is no fix planned at this time, but that was mid December, I haven't looked into it since then.

Hmm ... I am running Windows 7 (x64) and did not have compatibility issues. I guess they've resolved the problem since?

_________________

I guess I'm an advocate for this game, otherwise I wouldn't consider a particular Steam holiday sale news. Incidentally, this game is having a Steam holiday sale for <$9!

(No, not $9 factorial. That doesn't even make sense!)

_________________